This publication is a continuation of an article that appeared in the previous journal «Bible and Christian Antiquity», № 4 (8), and acquaints the reader with the experience of isosyllabic reconstruction using the example of another Gospel fragment (Matthew 23, 13–36).

The article makes accessible an important document from the Orthodox Christian tradition in Arabic: the epistle of the Orthodox patriarch Mark III of Alexandria (r. ca. 1180 — ca. 1209) to his spiritual son George, the abbot of the monastery of St. Jeremiah near Damietta. This document addresses a series of questions connected to the liturgical practices characteristic of the patriarchate of Alexandria in that period. The article includes an analytical introduction, an edition of the Arabic text, and a Russian translation.

This article analyzes the use of the noun μεταβολή, the verb μεταβάλλω and their derivatives by Clement of Alexandria. This analysis is preceded by a reference to the biblical passages containing these words. It turns out in what meanings Clement used them. As a rule, they designated changes that do not affect the nature (φύσις) or the essence (οὐσία) of a substance, face, etc. However, in single cases, Clement forms of μεταβολή and μεταβάλλω describe changes in elements (στοιχεῖα) (Ecl. 18, 2, cf. Protr. 11, 114, 4). In Exc. 4, 77, 2, and 4, 82, 1, the words studied characterize a cardinal spiritual transformation, testifying to the existence of a semantic shift that had an occasional character and consisted in their acquiring the meaning of a “substantial” transformation. It is suggested that these circumstances prompted early Christian authors to choose these lexemes to describe the Eucharist.

The first section of the article summarizes the study of the homiletic heritage of Leontius Presbyter of Constantinople, carried out by a team of scientists under the leadership of the author of the publication during 2019–2020. Additional methods of text analysis used in the study allowed us to accept S. Voicu’s hypothesis that all 37 homilies in one way or another belong to Leontius, and also to add to the corpus one more pseudo-chrysostomic «In filium viduae» (CPG 4663). The second section of the article is devoted to the analysis of the figurative world of Leontius as one of the factors confirming the belonging of the texts to one author, as well as revealing the level of rhetorical training and skill of the preacher. For the first time in the Russian scientific literature, the appendix contains a complete list of homilies included in the Corpus Leontianum, with the necessary bibliographic notes. At the end of the publication, which will be printed in the next issue, the results of the analysis of the symbolic images of Leontius (the Church and its sacred rites, the Lamb of God, the Bread of Heaven, the royal authority of Christ) will be presented and, in connection with them, additional considerations on the dating of the Corpus will be proposed.

The article explores the significance of Egyptian papyri in studying early Christianity and especially the persecution in the Roman Empire in the first centuries. The special attention is paid to the hypothesis of S. Huebner, who has suggested that P. Mil. Vogl. 6.287 (2nd–3rd centuries) is the first known judicial record of the interrogation of Christians, preserved without any alterations and editing. She came to this conclusion on the basis of the accusation of conspiracy (συνωμοσία) and the identification of Soth and Dioscorus, the son of Origen, mentioned in the text, with the Egyptian Christians previously known from other papyri. S. Huebner’s arguments are of some interest, but they seem not to be completely convincing.

This publication is devoted to the analysis of the interpretation by St. Jerome on Dan. 2, 4a, a hemistich, written in Hebrew, in which the transition to the Aramaic fragments of the Book of Daniel is made. Then attention is focused on the analysis of the St. Jerome’s comments on Dan. 2, 5b–11 (beginning of the Aramaic part). When analyzing exegesis, the main focus was on the translation of St. Jerome of the biblical text, which was compared with modern publications of the Vulgate, with the main Greek translations of the Book of Daniel (the Septuagint and Theodotion’s version), as well as with Peshitta, whose creation was influenced by Theodotion’s translation.

The beginnings of 1990ʼs was marked by a crisis of the BIOSCS due to decrease of  the materials’ income. But afterwards, as this crisis has been overcome thanks to vigorous activity of the editorial staff, the bulletin, increased in volume, began to turn into a real scientific journal. In general, this period of history of the Septuagint studies is characterized by a surge of interest in the translation of the Septuagint into new European languages. This interest, in some way, was overlapped with a protracted process of creating lexicons and the age-old work on the academic publication of the Septuagint text in Göttingen. Since the translations were intended for a wide audience with its diverse interests, including religious ones, the task of comprehensive commen tary on the Septuagint also became urgent.

«The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament» is one of the leading scientif ic journals in biblical studies. It was founded in 1976 and quickly became a popular platform for scientific discussions, gained a large number of both subscribers and authors who want to pub lish their research. It is no exaggeration to say that among the publications of this journal one can find the works of all the famous biblical scholars of our time, so that by its content one can detect what problems are discussed in modern biblical studies, what hypotheses are supported/ rejected by most scholars. In the proposed bibliographic review, we will briefly and sequentially consider all the publications of the journal, we will note the main ideas contained in its articles.